The Path of Dreams
by Neodammarung the Destroyer
Summary: Alex Tyrone was just your average expert programming genius, until he lost his job and in desperation, unwittingly joined the War for the Fate of the Third Age of Mankind. Now his destiny is linked completely with the mysterious 'Path of Dreams'. *DEAD FIC*
1. Chapter 1

THE PATH OF DREAMS

A Story Set in the 'District 9' Universe

_(Disclaimer: All items, characters, places, etc. not of the Author's creation are the property of their respective owners. This story will not be published and no money is being gained by its creation.)_

**I**

The desk was nearly bare by the time Alex was halfway done clearing the office of the few things that he had decorated the workspace with. The only thing left was the office phone which he couldn't take because it was company property and would be forced to unplug before leaving. The noon-light had just begun to decay beyond the window behind him, filtered erratically by the metal shades he had dropped to half-mast in order to avoid the vicious heat of 12 o' clock in Mombasa, Kenya.

For a thirty-five-year-old programmer, he didn't have many personal possessions he had thought right for decorating his office with, but now that he paused to look at them piled in the cardboard box they seemed to have an air of grim finality, the echo of a life that had reached its peak and now had nowhere to go but downhill. Shaking himself from his reverie, he returned to the final steps of clearing out his workspace. He opened the drawer on the left of his desk and reached in, removing a stapler, a letter opener, a few American pennies and an assorted collection of their Kenyan equivalents, and, finally, an old letter.

He sat down and opened the letter, re-read its contents and grimaced. It was that same damned letter, the one that had lured him across the sea to Africa. At the time, America was still struggling with economic troubles twenty-six years after the Great Recession triggered by the arrival of the alien ship over Johannesburg. In the interim, Africa had suddenly become the new global hot spot of opportunity. And it was in that former cesspit of senseless violence and social upheaval that Cobol Engineering had been waiting for him, offering an attractive package of benefits, a hefty salary, and the directorship of their Department of Non-Human Computer Research. He had been enthralled by the promise of riches, and maybe even fame, if he could decode the algorithms controlling the mile-long Poleepkwa mothership floating over Johannesburg. So he had come, selling his stateside assets and transferring fully to Mombasa, the site of Cobol Engineering's Headquarters. There he had happily spent the last five years working away on the alien computer systems retrieved from the huge vessel hovering over Joburg.

At first it had been great. He had gotten the hang of the alien text used by the Poleepkwa with relative ease, though he had had to draw on various outside sources on how their technology was designed and how what little humans could understand of it functioned in order to understand the mindset behind the coding. After applying a few basic computer language principles essential to any operating system, even an alien one and spending three-long sleepless nights developing an algorithm that would have taken an team of lower-rated programmers a decade even to theorize about, he had cracked control for one of the basic life-support systems, which when tested in the field by directly wiring into the mothership's mainframe and inputting the commands, turned out to be the artificial gravity control circuits. He had earned a massive raise and his boss had held an in-office party in his honor.

Then, in the space of three months, it had all come crashing down and for Alex Castor Tyrone, the future had become a bad road through a dark valley full of briars filled with angry snarling noises. With the sudden departure of the mothership his department was rendered virtually obsolete. If it had been that alone he might have been able to cope with the severe pay cut and loss of many personnel, but the universe had other ideas. Less than a month later, the trial of Fundiswa Mhlanga for the theft of Multi-National United's corporate records brought to light the illegal genetic experiments the company had been conducting on captive non-humans.

The company's stock plummeted overnight like a block of lead and, by relation of being a subsidiary of MNU, so had Cobol's. Soon the cutbacks had started and within a week of the trial's conclusion and the incarceration of the Fundiswa, Cobol had liquidated his department and the assets related to it.

"Thirty minutes, Mr. Tyrone," a security guard said, from his office's door. The man didn't wait for a reply but continued walking through the maze of office cubicles just outside.

Alex sneered at the letter and went over to the little trash bin in the corner a small beige colored thing equipped with a shredder that he had been informed earlier was company property and therefore, not his to remove. It held an impressive variety of dead flies, victims of the fly zapper directly above it. The building was a very modern one in comparison with most of Mombasa, but no air conditioning system in the world could keep out the flies from the street market two blocks over. They just seemed to find a way in, no matter what, and today it seemed the system was not working because despite his attempts to check the heat in the room by lowering the shades. He stood over the bin and with a look of internal fury marring his usually calm features, shoved the thing into the hungry jaws of the machine which choked, then reduced it to confetti. With the loss of his job, he had been left with the contents of his life preserver of a bank account and a sea of debts that had immediately started to try and pull him under. It was only a mercy that he had made the right friends in this town. Otherwise he would have had the Kenyan equivalent of the Repo Service all over him the moment he had been laid off last week.

With the letter obliterated, he reached into his left pocket and pulled out a Smart-Phone, whose caller directory he then accessed with a few well placed taps and swipes of his index finger. He dragged the digit down the side of the small touch-screen, pulling down its scroll bar and scanned through his contacts, glancing at the small pictures of the people displayed in it as they whizzed past.

Three years ago Alex had been among the elite ranks of the finest programmers and hackers on the East Coast. This had made him a great many friends whose pictures and contact information he kept in the little device he now held.

Of course the thing didn't just contain people from America now. It also held ways to contact the friends he had made during his stay here in Africa. He was meticulous when it came to making the right allies and keeping track of people who owed him favors. As he skimmed, he wondered what he might do for his next job.

That detective, Inspector John Sheppard, might be able to get him into a job with the computer department in local law enforcement. Or, perhaps, he could go to work for Cobol's biggest rival, the Global/Massive Dynamics think-tank conglomerate. Few companies had made more attractive offers to him than those made by G.M.D. What's more, they had a building right here in Mombasa in the southwest corner of the business district. He wondered if that job offer they had made to him a few years back might still be open…

Banishing these thoughts to the back of his mind, he turned the PDA off and put it in the nearby packing case. There wasn't much in it besides what he had already cleaned out. On the desk, the office phone rang with the same cordial tone it had had since the day he had arrived. Sighing, he walked back over and checked the caller ID. It was his former secretary, Mrs. Anna Kimberly (She had stated the first part very firmly on the day they had met. Alex assumed it made her feel better). With a certain amount of subconscious hesitation, he removed the phone from its place and accepted the call.

"Yes?" he said, his slowly-dying anger still somewhat present in his tone of voice.

"Sorry to disturb you, sir, but Ron just handed me a letter that he says he was given by a man standing at the bus stop down by the parking lot. It's addressed to you.. He didn't give a name and the envelope doesn't have a return address. Do you want to come and collect it? Or should I send it to security for a check-up?" she said in a voice which carried a certain amount of the worry she must have been feeling.

Alex bit his lip in concern then ran his fingers through his black, smooth hair, now made greasy by the afternoon humidity. Was it safe to open an envelope like that? What if it had anthrax spores sprinkled inside it? Though it had never occurred to him until right now, with a reputation like the one Cobol Engineering had earned from recent events hanging on his shoulders, he could have become a target of a pro-non-human rights extremist group overnight. People around here didn't punch you when they got mad, they smiled and then went to the local Witch Doctor to get you cursed or your food poisoned.

Since the revelation of MNU's criminal experiments with live Poleepkwa, there had been a world-wide uproar and protesters had surrounded every single one of the buildings owned by MNU and its subsidiaries. The MNU Headquarters in Johannesburg had practically been under siege for the last three months by masses of protesters ranging from those against genetic experimentation to pro-Poleepkwa Equal Rights groups. The United Nations had predictably tied up the decision whether or not to bring charges against the company over Fundiswa's apparent evidence for weeks, which had only escalated the problem, resulting in the hurling of Molotov Cocktails by some of the more extreme factions among the protesters. There had been riots as well, when anti-non-human and speciesist groups had turned up to support the companies and had clashed with those already present. There had been deaths on both sides before the law had decided to intervene.

Rumor had it though that the extremist factions from the pro-alien groups had been resorting to violence against the high-ranking members of both the companies affiliated with MNU and MNU itself. Already, several major players in Cobol had been mobbed by angry protesters on the way to and from their workplaces and one had had his house bombed.

Alex had never liked the way the 'Prawns' had been herded into ghettos, but it was hard to care about or even relate to a race two-legged humanoid bugs that screeched and clicked to talk. And he certainly didn't feel strong enough about it to risk his job by joining a protest. In his opinion, both factions were as bad as those extremist factions like the Green Brigade or the KKK or the Westborough Church.

Alex wasn't a prejudiced man. He had friends back in the U.S. Who were homosexuals and on the one occasion he had actually met one of the aliens, he had maintained a polite demeanor and been as nice as possible. It was just that...well, like all humans in the presence of another, equally sentient creature, he had felt awkward and uneasy. It wasn't just their appearance that caused this in him, or even their method of speech. It was simply the fact that they were as smart as he was and yet looked so...alien that he couldn't even read their expressions. It was the divide of biology and anatomy, and no matter how much he wanted or tried to bridge that gap, the actions of those on both sides of the rift towards the other just increased the distance.

Still, he wasn't working here anymore. Not that that might've made a difference to a hardcore idealist psychopath of the kind from which extremist groups are made, but what the hell, sometimes you had to take chances.

"Send it Joan. I'll take a look at it." He said.

"Yes sir." She replied. Outside, there was a whooshing noise as the pneumatic mail tube came on. The ceiling was crisscrossed with the piping of the aforementioned system from which he had received sign-off forms for expenditures and various other, more classified documents for the past few years. Putting down the phone and making a final rummage through the desk drawers, he placed the lid on the last box and put it in the five-box stack he had created on a nearby push dolly, all of which were filled with the contents of the three large, immovable filing cabinets in the corner of the room. The thump it made as he dropped it on the top of the stack had all the qualities of the executioner's axe hitting the chopping block. He turned, made a final, depressed survey of the now empty room, then went to check the letter.

When he opened the tube using the key-card around his neck that made it his own personal device until he relinquished them upon his final exit of the building, he was rather surprised that no one else was about. The silence of the surrounding cubicles didn't surprise him because they had always been quiet in every company he had worked at, but this was a work day after all and it was noon, with lunch having started only a few minutes ago. You would have thought you'd see someone headed for the elevator on their way to the cafeteria on the ground floor, but the place was silent.

In all honesty he didn't mind. The lack of any people coming up and saying something like: 'Too bad about the layoffs, man. Sorry to see you go.' was good. He didn't want false pity and sympathy. He thought it was a waste of time and that it really didn't make the receiver feel any better, no matter how heartfelt it might be.

The letter inside the cylinder was just as his secretary had said it would be: no return address, crisp and business-like. He prodded it gingerly with his pinky finger. There was no explosion or release of any sort of neurotoxin like he was half-expecting. Then he remembered that he didn't work here anymore and probably had nothing to fear from some harmless loony's envelope. He picked it up and walked back into his office after locking the tube shut again.

Once inside, he opened up the box he had just placed on top of the stack and pulled out the letter opener he had stashed inside earlier. With a casual flick he slit open the small package of paper. Once he had replaced the tool in its box he shook out the contents of the envelope over the desk. Inside was a single piece of paper with a short paragraph, typed with none of the etiquette that a letter might have.

'Mr. Tyrone, I am part of a group of people who are willing to pay you a considerable amount of money for you to act as middleman in certain transactions and carry out small operations that, for reasons of security, must be kept out of the public eye. For similar reasons all information pertaining to the organizations I represent must be kept secret. We have observed you for some time and decided that your skills are suited to our needs.

If you agree we will see to it that your debts are resolved without incident and that you are well compensated for your trouble. I regret that the purpose and end result of your assistance in these matters, as well as my organization's goals and purposes, cannot be disclosed at this time but suffice to say, you will benefit greatly from participation, as will all beings populating this planet. In one year's time, if you are still interested, come to the 'Heart of the City' Hotel in the residential district and enter room 31. An operative of ours will be waiting to give you your instructions. Should you choose to refuse employment, then we will simply find another desperate man with the right abilities.'

"Desperate?" he said to himself.

He stood up and looked around the empty office, but saw no one. His face felt hot. This had to be a joke. Some jerk's cruel idea of humor. But who?

He sat back down in his chair. He re-read the letter. This was so over the top. No sane person could possibly think otherwise. But, how had they known his name?

He shook his head. It didn't matter. Maybe it would make for a good story over drinks when he got back to America. He folded the message back into its envelope and tossed it into the box. He would drop it into the shredder with its thrice-damned cousin on the way out.

Two hours later he was in his car, his boxes stacked in the back seat, and navigating the reckless traffic of Mombasa's streets, and the letter had vanished from his thoughts. Once at home, he tossed the boxes into an unused room of his five-room apartment in the better part of Mombasa's residential district, then went to his computer to begin typing a lot of job application letters.

That was nearly a year ago. Things hadn't got better. In fact, from that point on, they'd only got worse. MUCH worse


	2. Chapter 2

**II**

He lived in a gritty two-room apartment in the over-crowded migrant district of Mombasa. It was a rough neighborhood where people raised goats on the roof. With only a bottle of maze liquor for company, he had a view of a brick wall out one window and a seeming endless sprawl of roof tops below a stormy sky beyond the other. Overhead, the sky prepared for a major downpour which would turn the miraculously half-paved and poorly tarred roads of this district into a slurry of mud, dead chickens and garbage washed out of the alleys. Once upon a time the room had been populated by furniture, but that had been before the Kenyan equivalent of the Repo Service had turned up last week. His will to argue had died upon seeing the two big Nigerian men in the doorway who had demanded the surrender of the roll-top desk that he had been using to store his paperwork. The misery had only deepened as, day after day, fresh bills and job denials poured through the mail slot and added to the growing heap on the wood plank he had scavenged from a garbage bin and cleaned thoroughly before turning it into his replacement desk.

Over the past year he'd been turned down by virtually every corporation from Stark Industries and ENCOM to G.M.D. No one wanted anything to do with someone who had 'work experience' at Cobol Engineering written on their resume. MNU, its subsidiaries and their employees had rapidly become global _persona non grata_ when the U.N. had finally come to a resolution and started hacking through the jungle of red tape surrounding the company in order to investigate the claims of Fundiswa Mhlanga. He knew it was hopeless though. The committees had bickered and quarreled for so long about it that everyone knew MNU would have had ample time to correct the mistake that had allowed Fundiswa to discover their scheme.

So here he sat, one month after giving up all hope of finding a job. Even with his friends and contacts helping all the way on every side, he was unable to leave the country because of debts that had turned his wallet into a black hole and his bank account into a joke with barely enough left of its original contents to pay the rent, much less pay for even a one Trans-Atlantic flight. Facing the horizon of his tiny world as the clouds gathered, pondering on how far he had fallen. He had lost his old apartment six months ago, along with much of his furniture which he had had to sell.

He was becoming accustomed to living on the floor and eating fast food at the horrible, greasy little shops around here which supplied mysterious stews to those desperate enough to desire them. He was not an alcoholic, but lately the open bottle of cheap wine sitting next to him on the table had become more appealing. In a desperate attempt to lighten the mood, he picked up the bottle by its neck and waved it towards the cloudy sky, as if proposing a toast.

"Here's looking at you, kid." He said hopelessly. He hesitated then took a swig of the foul stuff, forcing it down with a grimace. Then he turned back to the clouds.

"Come and drown my sorrows, you bastards. If this crap can't do it then why don't you give it a shot?" he muttered at the growing storm. Below the streets were bustling as market sellers closed up along with cafes and other establishments in preparation for the inevitable evening downpour. Every goddamn morning he awoke to the bustle of people in a variety of attire, mostly African-Natives, all speaking at the top of their voices in a variety of native tongues.

Amidst the imagined buzzing of mindless boredom and the growing fungus of full-on depression, the sound of his cell phone buzzing went almost unnoticed. Once he recognized the source of the sound, he dug through the pocket of his pants and pulled out the small device. Out of habit, he checked caller identity. The words 'UNKNOWN CALLER' flashed on the screen. That was new… He accepted the call and raised the phone to his ear.

"Whoever this is, if you aren't going to hire me, then-", he tried to say, but the strangely unnerving and cultured female voice that cut him off almost made him drop the phone.

"_Good Evening, Mr. Tyrone,_" a woman practically purred. Fumbling for a moment to keep the phone in his grasp, Alex managed to get the device back next to his ear.

"Who is this?" he demanded, mildly annoyed with himself at being so shocked by the voice.

"_Oh dear, it seems you have forgotten._" she said. There was a tone of mock concern in it now, he was certain of it. He tried to recognize the accent, but his limited knowledge of which accents belonged to which countries were more of a hindrance than a help.

"Forgotten what? What could possibly-"he managed to say before the voice cut him off yet again.

"_I'd be more civil with someone who's trying to give you a job if I were you._"

Alex's jaw hung open for a moment, and then clicked shut.

"_Good boy. Now, you are late for your appointment. If you'll remember, I sent you a letter, one year ago today. Assuming you're still interested, our operative awaits your presence at the 'Heart of the City' Hotel. If you do not arrive in six hours, he will depart and you will never hear from us again. Do I make myself clear?_" the enigmatic voice inquired.

Alex's thoughts raced. He remembered a letter on the day he had cleaned out his office. It had stuck out because of it's ludicrous job offer and the very fact that it was the only snail-mail he had received since the letter notifying him of his father's funeral, which had arrived a week after Alex had attended it. At the time he had been certain that whoever had written the job offer had watched old Mission Impossible movies too often, but now…

Eventually he realized that he had been silent for over thirty seconds and then managed to say 'Yes'.

"_Excellent. I look forward to working with you in person…should you choose to accept, of course._" The voice said with a tone of happy approval. There was a decisive click from the other end and then nothing but the soft buzz of dial tone.

He sat motionless as outside the sky continued to darken, promising a heavy rain later that night. Kind of a sexy voice, he thought, while the rest of his mind compiled a list of reasons for why he should call the police instead of take the job. His sense of desperation, and a growing curiosity about the face that went with the voice, overrode the fear.

'Screw it, man,' he rationalized. 'You need money. No one else will give you a break, so stop being a picky beggar AND GO CHECK OUT THE DAMN JOB…besides, that voice… you haven't been laid in a long time. We could be looking at a fascinating new opportunity here."

Alex had never been one for long-term romantic relationships. Love had always struck him as bit ethereal and soppy, unlike kindness, which was solid and easier to appreciate. However, this hadn't stopped him from having three or four girlfriends while passing through college and another one briefly after graduation They had all been intelligent girls who shared his interests which made hooking up so much easier. The breakups had always been mutual, civilized and understanding, which was a mercy because he would've hated to be haunted by the screaming and yelling and accusations that would have accompanied a poorly conducted parting of ways. In that, at least, he considered himself lucky.

One thing he had prided himself on while in his relationships was never letting the sex get boring. Humanity's first favorite pastime, when he had had a partner to share it with, was something he worked very hard at

He jumped out of his chair and grabbed his coat and umbrella, both of which hung on a row of simple wooden pegs driven into the wall by the door. Many thoughts went through his brain as he took them down, but hovering just under the surface was 'I am **so** going to regret this…'

Night had fully fallen and the clouds were letting loose their contents with a vengeance. Alex had absolutely no love for the weather in this country. There were only two seasons around here: the dry season, where it was so hot you might expect to get a sunburn after ten seconds of exposure, and temperatures rose high enough to broil the average American tourist, and then the wet season, where looking up with your mouth open during a rainstorm could give you a close call with drowning. The rain thundered down in a never-ending torrent that had long ago soaked him despite the cheap umbrella. Apparently no expense had been attempted in the thing's creation and it was more 'cheap' than 'umbrella'.

Alex walked as fast he could through the now empty streets. The darkness was broken by street-light pools of illumination. It was almost creepy how great the contrast between daytime Mombasa and nighttime Mombasa was. The streets were packed from dawn to dusk, but at night, the streets were virtually deserted, making his quiet passage all the more easy, and dangerous. Above, the gutters gargled and tried uselessly to spit, their mouths stuffed with years of built-up filth. He watched the darkness for muggers and thieves, but he knew deep down 'modern' Mombasa was not accustomed to a storm as strong as this one. Global warming in recent years had exacerbated the problem of frequent storms coming in off the Indian Ocean. It was wet enough tonight to drive the usual thugs indoors.

Since his accounts had begun to dwindle, he had watched the streets more and more for entertainment because there were often fights that broke out over accusations of stolen merchandise. He had sworn never to become underemployed, but the 'Help Wanted' sign in the window of a fruit shop across from his apartment had become steadily more attractive with each day without pay.

Alex managed to track down the 'Heart of the City' Hotel on his phone's GPS. It was in a deserted area on the edge of the city's warehouse district. By the looks of things it hadn't seen service in over a decade. The windows were all dark and smeared with the grime of days gone by. The main entrance was occupied by a pair of those glass-sliding doors you saw in old supermarkets which helped keep out most of the insects and none of the dust. Upon testing it, he found the motion-sensor eye above the doors to be offline and the doors themselves to be locked. Not one for breaking and entering even an old dump like this, he stood there in the inexhaustible waterfall from on high and wondered what to do next.

His cell phone buzzed in his pocket. He pulled it out without much surprise and opened it up. There was a new text message on the screen: '**Come** **'round the back. Code is 1126.**' Letting out a huff of annoyance, Alex clicked the phone shut and went to the alley that bordered the building's left side. This was becoming all too like some ridiculous 1920's gumshoe-detective novel. The dumpsters backed up against the building's wall were virtually overflowing with refuse and the rain had only made the stench of their contents that much worse. In an area like this, where everything that wasn't nailed down was open game for scavengers, it was easy to see why the dumpsters had been passed over for collection. He had to tread carefully not to step on any of the crap that had fallen out of the rusting containers which looked so decrepit that one kick could probably have put his foot through their rusting metal sides. The plastic lids however were no longer present, probably having been salvaged by some excessively desperate homeless guy in an attempt to create a makeshift shelter from the unreasonable weather conditions.

After a bit of blundering around in the dark and banging his foot against one of the dumpsters, he made it to the back of the alley where the building's brickwork was interrupted by a small door with what looked like a small number-pad lock grafted to the handle. It was hard to tell in the dark that pervaded the small area. He had used many such devices in the corporate offices he had once served, but never in public and certainly never in a back alley. Finally understanding the second half of the text message, he pressed in the code given to him, but had to do it three times, once because of the rain coating the device and once because of the darkness of the alley. There was a click and the door slowly swung open. Alex half-expected it to creak, in accordance with the current condition of the building. The fact that it didn't made it all the more ominous.

Upon entering the dry space beyond, he was immediately struck by the smell of decaying plaster and all the other things you might expect to find in an abandoned building like this one. As he forced his uncooperative umbrella closed and looked around by the light of a few still-functioning fluorescent lights overhead, he realized he had entered the hotel from the rear fire-exit. He looked down to shake the umbrella dry and noticed the wires hanging from a hole in the nearby wall which indicated that both the fire and burglar alarms had long ago been removed. Something inside him, possibly the bubbling voice of dread, urged him closer to inspect the rift in the wall at close quarters.

Alex wasn't an expert, but if you wanted to officially disconnect an alarm system, didn't you turn it off at the source? He was sure you didn't just cut a hole in the wall and clip the wires with a bolt-cutter. And that was another thing: the hole didn't look like it had been cut. It looked like someone had smashed the wall open, leaving a jagged hole in the rotting plaster. What they had used was beyond him but it sure looked heavy-duty. The plaster had been backed by rows of thin wooden beams that had shattered upon impact and now lent the hole the look of a mouth full of jagged teeth viewed from an angle.

Carefully, he inspected the opening with a finger and pulled back as a splinter came away and lodged itself in his finger. He swore at himself and pulled the thing out as a little bead of blood formed at the point of entry, dripping onto the faded and cheap white carpet underfoot. He clenched his fist and squeezed it to stop the flow. He'd have to wash it out later. In a run-down shit-hole like this place God knows what he could catch.

Keeping the injured finger in a fist, he proceeded forward into the dim not-quite-light of the sickly fluorescent beams overhead. It was clear now why he hadn't seen them from the front; they barely cast enough light to keep him from tripping over his own feet every few meters.

Eventually he made it to the small lobby area where a receptionist's desk sat in decrepit ruin near the main door. To its left was an elevator door and a set of stairs whose first, third and fifth landings were half-invisible behind the elevator. The elevator itself was of the sort you saw in office buildings of the early part of the 20th century. The cables and machinery supporting the small metal cage were visible through a metal grille that encased the elevator as a sort of open-air shaft around which the staircase was wrapped. Not trusting the ancient machine with his life, Alex opted for the stairs.

The first landing revealed that the hallways to the suites themselves on each floor were placed on the left of each landing that the elevator concealed. Alex had stayed in enough hotels to know that the room he was needed in was on the third floor because of the suite numbering system that all hotels seemed to share. He ascended carefully in case a sudden groan might warn of an impending collapse.

In spite of his grim expectations, the ascent was totally uneventful. He walked down the hallway on the third floor more freely, each step on the ragged carpeting underfoot sending up puffs of dust which made him hold his nose in an attempt not to sneeze. He reached the end of the otherwise bare corridor and turned left into the main hallway where ancient and paint-stripped doors led to the suites themselves.

He could hear an indistinct mumbling from not far away through one of the time-worn doors that lined the hallway. He turned to his left, then to his right while trying to figure out which room was the right one while in the distance the unclear voice rambled on. From what little he could make out it sounded like an argument was going on, possibly over a phone since there was only one distinguishable voice, the same one he had heard over the phone, only more agitated.

"I don't care. I say it cannot be done. It'll fail just like the others and then where-….Okay you know what, fine. You do it if you're so certain it's the right course. I've done it before and even I failed. You heard me! Me, _moi_, _ego_! And if me, _moi_ got _ego_ all over my _facha_ then it cannot be done! Fine, fine, okay, OKAY! You win! Look, just-…Alright, but what about-…Look, never mind that. I have to go."

The monologue ended as Alex reached for the handle of the door on which at about head height, the outline in the dust where something had once been nailed read '31'. With cautious slowness he opened the door. Inside the room, his attention was immediately drawn to the small card table and two chairs in the middle of the room, illuminated by a standing lamp plugged into a socket on the wall.

In the chair farthest from the door sat a woman with an oriental-style cut of hair and a pair of small dark glasses which she was already folding into a pocket of her large black trench coat and a Bluetooth earpiece that she must have been using shortly prior to Alex's entrance. At a glance, her features seemed incredibly attractive, including an odd tattoo across the side of her face that, by his judgment, looked rather new until he saw her eyes once the glasses were removed. One look was all it took for him to start revising his plans for flirting along the lines that it was anything but wise to start messing with this girl. She looked up and nodded to Alex with a grim, business-like's expression, showing no sign that she had been arguing (with some very witty comebacks, he had to admit) a few moments earlier.

With one hand she gestured for Alex to take the other seat while she reached under the table into a leather duffel bag and pulled out a small manila folder which she placed on the table and opened. Alex leaned his umbrella by the door and gladly took the seat proffered to him while the woman flipped through the contents of the folder with an air of precision and unconcern that Alex was already finding annoying. A little while later, she began to drum her fingers on the table. After about forty-five seconds of this, the woman looked up.

"Mr. Tyrone, when my associates and I reviewed your qualifications, we thought that you might be the perfect candidate for the job we had in mind. If you can prove to us that you are in fact the perfect candidate we intend to help you with your monetary issues."

Alex smiled, but remained silent. It seemed safest not to say anything right now. He had come here expecting a job offer, but now it seemed he had to pass some test. He hoped it wasn't any harder than peeing in a cup or solving a cross-word puzzle.

After staring at him like he was a bug stuck on a pin, his…'interviewer' returned to the contents of the folder. Alex's certainty that he would regret having come here began to grow again.

"Should you pass the test and win employment, we would require you to transport certain…packages to and from us and our associates, as well as carry out small deeds which will better the world in large ways. For each job, you will be paid a sum of 15,000 Euros-worth of Kenyan shillings in cash. You might not hear from us for several weeks and at other times you will receive tasks daily. You will be expected to complete them with maximum alacrity. Should you attempt to inform anyone of our existence, your contract will be terminated and you will find nothing to prove we ever existed. Understood?" she said tersely, looking sharply at Alex with that last statement.

Alex, still unsure of what part he was supposed to be playing here, smiled and nodded again. "How fast can I get out of here?" he thought. In the back of his head he tried to calculate an escape route that didn't result in severe bodily harm and discovered he couldn't think of one

"Excellent. Do you wish to try out for the job?" the woman asked, a brief, not-entirely-nice smile crossing her features. He needed to ask some questions, get some answers, act like he was really interested, instead of terrified of doing anything for this mysterious woman and her 'associates'.

"I have a of questions I'd like answered before I accept." He said. After a long, nerve-wracking pause, the nameless woman nodded.

"Certainly. I'm afraid however that I cannot disclose my name, the name of my employers or our goals." She said with an air of professional joviality.

"Okay. Right." Alex wiped his sweaty palms on the side of his pants, "First of all, I'm not going to be transporting anything illegal or dangerous, am I?"

His 'interviewer' gave him a genuine smile that immediately made Alex even more suspicious.

"No. You won't be moving or doing anything illegal. You won't even have to move anything through customs. You'll simply oversee transportation of goods and execution of tasks within Mombasa. " .

"And I'm not allowed to ask why you need me to do this, right?".

"Correct.".

"But am I the perfect candidate for this job? I'm not exactly the fetch and carry sort of guy.".

"Mr. Tyrone, do you want the job or not?". The voice now carried an edge of impatience like a wind of made of razors. Alex chided himself for being so stupid as to ask such a question in a job interview.

"Yes." he said.

"Good. Now, if you're done asking questions...". Alex held up a finger.

"Just one more question..." he said. Inside, he knew this was pushing his luck, but then again, he couldn't sleep at night without knowing...

"Okay. I don't want to be insulting, but if you are some sort of…" Alex had to force the next words out, "-terrorist cell, then if something goes wrong then it won't get traced back to me, will it?"

Alex half-expected the woman to reach into her coat, pull out a pistol and blow his brains onto the wall behind him. It was therefore a relief when her only response was to give him a mild look of puzzlement.

"Whatever led you to think we were terrorists, Mr. Tyrone? True we operate in cells across the world but we are not terrorists. Terrorists are extremists and zealots who have no place in a proper society and usually seek to disguise their violent actions with rhetoric and religion when in fact It's nothing but a quest for their own selfish, personal gain. More often than not they have no interest in improving society and do not care about collateral damage." She said in a tone of moderate confusion. She paused for a moment, then continued.

"The point is, Mr. Tyrone, terrorists do things with little or no efficiency for all the wrong reasons. WE, Mr. Tyrone, do them for the right reasons and with maximum efficiency. I will admit, there IS the possibility that violence MIGHT be involved in the achievement of our aims, but we take every means at our disposal to minimize it." She finished.

"So that's technically a 'yes' it can't be traced back to me, right?".

"Yes. You will be safe from any repercussion that should occur. If you should be discovered, then simply call us. An untraceable number will be provided with your employment package. Should trouble ever descend, we will answer your summons, no matter where or when it should come." Alex's mind fought with itself. On one hand, he needed the money and as long as it wasn't anything violent then it was probably safe. On the other hand, the whole secrecy of this thing was making him highly suspicious. Eventually, after wresting with his conscience (and getting metaphorically kneed in the eye for his trouble), his desperation overruled his paranoia.

"Okay. Then I guess, if that's all cleared up, I accept."

"An excellent choice, Mr. Tyrone." She said and flashed him her genuine smile again. She stretched out her hand for Alex to shake. Alex tried to relax and force down the certainty that he had done something immensely foolish by coming here.

He shook the woman's hand, making sure not to let his gaze wander to her maddeningly hot figure. She had a firm, strong grip, the kind you expect an honest person in a business field to have, and that just made Alex all the more suspicious.

"So, what do I have to do for this 'test',?

"You may call me Runner. If you pass the test, I will be your go-between with the rest of the Agency." She reached for the bag under the table and handed it to him. At his questioning look, she gave a small smile.

"Inside you'll find half of your first payment. There's no need to sign anything. You'll also find some supplementary materials for your use and a list of tasks. If all goes well and you carry them out by the deadline expressed at the bottom of the list, then I hope to see you here at an hour similar to this on the due date, but in the basement, if you please."

Alex shakily walked down the hallway and out the back door of the Heart of the City. The rain had stopped and the cloud cover was breaking up, showing a gibbous moon among the stars beyond. He looked down at his watch, amazed at how much time had gone by. By correlation, he must've spent over two hours in that building, even though it had felt like a quarter of that time. His clothes were damp with sweat beneath his coat, which was something he did profusely when nervous. He was glad to be out in the cool damp air. As he walked away from the building he forced himself to not run. The reason he didn't have to sign anything was obvious: they would be watching him, CLOSELY. And if anything went wrong or he broke a company rule or he screwed up…well they had a lot of replacements presumably lined up in case of that.

Back in the barren room, the woman sat for a while in silence while her recruit walked into the light of the rising sun. Eventually her Bluetooth attachment came on with a buzzing noise. Slowly, she stood as a smile spread over her features, then pressed the 'answer' button.

"Well?" said a voice from the other end of the connection.

"I think we've got him."

"He received the full pre-employment package?"

"Yessir. He displayed exactly the responses we predicted. Everything is falling into place.".


	3. Chapter 3

**III**

The next morning, after getting dressed, washing and shaving, Alex took his first look into the bag he had been sent home with. He had chosen to leave its contents unknown to make sure that if this really was a joke, he could deal with the rage and possible relief it would inspire after having slept properly. The bag contained several moderately-sized books which he chose to ignore, some manila folders, a dozen VERY large wads of cash, some flash drives of varying designs in a special little 'booklet' of sorts with the words 'DO NOT USE UNTIL DIRECTED TO' in big, friendly, nerve-wracking letters on the front, a set of maps, a tiny hammer and a set of chisels (WTF?), a pair of billiard balls (Once again, WTF, dude?), several sets of what he took to be fake IDs and papers to go with them and lastly, and this clinched the other two WTF moments by far with its sheer oddity, a cell phone in a plastic bag marked ' DO NOT USE' in far less friendly and even more disturbing big red letters. After looking through all this, he noticed a single sheet of paper at the bottom of the bag. Upon examination it turned out to be the list he had been told about.

After looking around for a moment and then spending a few seconds to make sure he had nothing better to do, he read it. The first few tasks were simple. They involved the pickup of various packages in areas scattered around the business district and their quick transportation to areas marked by letters, numbers and red dots on the maps he had received. It all seemed perfectly normal (in a shadowy secret agent way) until he reached the part about the chisels and the billiard balls. One directive told him to loosen a specific brick indicated in a diagram next to it on a specific floor of a certain building whose Swahili proprietor's name he couldn't pronounce if he had the mouth of a 'prawn', but which, upon examination of a handy guide book he retrieved from under his couch (after a full fifteen minutes of searching and swearing), turned out to be a simple hotel where the rooms were cheap, clean and often empty. Another 'mission' had him placing one of the billiard balls on a staircase in a damp alley somewhere on 47th Street down in the warehouse district.

Either they were jokes or carefully planned attempts at littering. Did these idiots sit around together in an attic, scheming to steal watches by paying for them? He chuckled at the thought, until a much darker one came along to replace it: these people were not the kind to joke around. He had seen that in the cold gaze of that 'Runner' lady last night, so whatever lunacy this bunch of 'not-terrorists-at-all' had in mind, it was bound to be big…but where would loosening a brick in the wall of an old hotel come into it? Was this some sort of crazy war of attrition? And then he remembered something he had read about kung-fu masters when he was much younger and far less wise: a master didn't break a block by strength alone; he applied the right amount of force to the right area at the right time to maximize effect. The same went for visual displays in all artistic fields and even in music; the right thing at the right place, and most importantly, at the RIGHT time.

After ten minutes of trying to link these unrelated subjects together while sitting on the floor among the pile of paper, he gave up and made the decision to change the course of history. Of course he didn't think of it like that at the time. What he REALLY thought was 'What the hell. I'll try and do one of these weird ones, just to see what happens.'. He scanned his way to the top of the list and read his first task: Retrieve package from back alley of nearest McDonald's on 4/25/15. Deliver to point A174.

"Screw that." He muttered. He skimmed down the list until he found a really nice one involving the placing of a cue ball on the dividing depression between the concrete slabs that made up the sidewalk under a bus stop bench in the city's business district, one he had used with moderate irregularity back when he had been employed by normal people and owned a car. Upon realizing it was so close to Cobol Engineering's Headquarters, he shivered. With luck, he thought, no one will recognize me...if I'm careful.

After checking the bus time-tables given on the back of the map, he determined that the next bus would be arriving at the nearest stop in less than ten minutes. Then, stopping only to grab a jacket from his tiny closet and to shove one of the small books from the bag into its pocket just in case the journey took a while and place the cue ball called for in the instructions in the other pocket with some of his new money and the map, made his exit.

It took him less than six minutes to find the nearest bus stop, where he waited for a further seven minutes for the arrival of one of the rackety old buses people native to Mombasa thought of as a public transportation system. He hopped aboard, using a few bills from one of the wads of Kenyan cash to pay off the 'bouncer' that all such vehicles in the city seemed to possess in order to keep off nonpaying passengers. He had rarely used the buses when he had been employed, having opted to drive in a car he no longer owned, but since his downfall, he had come to appreciate them as a cheap and reliably unreliable source of quick transportation. While on the bus, he pulled out the book he had shoved in his pocket earlier. It was blank, both on the front cover and the spine, and seemed as thick as a net-book laptop, but was small enough to fit into his jacket pocket without drawing undue attention.

Stuffing the map he had been carrying in his other hand into the pocket from which he had pulled the bills, he located a seat on the currently quite empty vehicle and flipped the book open. The morning commute to work was nearly over and this bus seemed to stick to the better parts of town for the most part, so that might've explained it's inherent emptiness. The only other people aboard were a trio of couples at the back, a pair of businessmen in black suits sitting across the aisle from Alex and an old woman with an open box of nectarines sitting in front of him, which filled his nose with a mix of dust and the sticky-sweet stench of the contents of said box, which was no doubt headed to a street-market stall. None of them appeared to be the least bit interested in him.

The text appeared to be simple enough, the standard kind you found in all books printed in English everywhere. And the text was arranged into perfectly normal sentences and paragraphs...or so it seemed. It took a while for Alex to realize that the book was crammed with quotes, thousands of quotes from works of literature, history and film, possibly from everywhere on the globe. He skimmed through the tide of philosophical, technical and humorous gibberish, confusion multiplying exponentially. Some of the quotes were not labeled while others seemed to be a random string of words . The frequency of these types of quotes increased as he flipped further and further into the book. Suddenly, when he was halfway through, the quotes turned to lists of names, not just of people but of all sorts of things. Just after the section full of lists was a six-page long blank space which was then followed by the only thing in the book that even made the slightest sense. It was a poem...sort of. It was titled 'Elegy for Humanity'. His already confused mind captivated by the strangeness of this book, he read it.

'Born in a cradle from which they refuse to leave,

twisted by evils from without and within,

they know not what they are meant to be.

They chose hate over love, war over peace,

because they were taught that they were right.

Their delusions ascendant, their cruelty given meaning,

through fire and war and insanity they reigned

and crusaded against the light.

And in the end, all things did pay the price.

The heavens burned, the stars cried out...

and under the ashes of infinity,

hope, scarred and bleeding,

breathed its last.'

Alex snapped the book shut before the storm of confusion as to what the hell this stuff was all about filled his whole head. Besides, that poem, though obviously not a masterwork, had sent chills up his spine for some reason.

A little while later, the bus came to a stop, it's brakes clearly needing to be taken in for a checkup due to the screech they generated with the sudden halt, causing him to look out the window, which he had been doing at every pause in motion. Each bus stop of which was spaced about seven minutes apart, so he had been doing this quite frequently on the journey through the city, during which the businessmen had gotten off as well as one of the couples, who had been replaced by a lanky African man with a suitcase and another Caucasian guy who had deep, dark circles under his eyes as if he hadn't been sleeping very well. Outside, the sign over bus stop indicated he had reached his destination. He disembarked and looked around.

The business district of Mombasa hadn't changed much in the time he had been gone. The bus stop was less than quarter of a mile from the actual Cobol Engineering building, which loomed eight stories high among the mostly six- or five-story buildings populating the rest of the district. It stood like an impervious mirror-skinned monolith, smugly looking down on its competitors like a bully looking down on his targets. It was no secret that the company now employed private soldiers to guard its premises at night and to act as a last line of defense should a new protest begin and storm the building in spite of the efforts of the police. Behind the bus stop loomed the company's garage, which was three stories tall and filled with the vehicles of employees

Alex glared at the place. The people owning those cars and working in the nearby building had their lives figured out and worked for people who didn't hide in run down buildings, call meetings on dark and stormy nights or speak in riddles. In his soul, he longed to feel as they no doubt did...as HE one had, to be a part of something and to be in control of his life as well as appreciated. He pulled out the instructions and the map from his pocket after shoving the book back into his jacket and scanned down the list until he had found the directive he was following, then used it to locate the correct space between the concrete slabs of the sidewalk, which had some respectably large cracks from ten years of service without refit. The bus stop was the standard kind you might even find at an airport, with a big metal and glass box enclosing a bench on three sides while facing the street. Under the bench, the slabs making up the sidewalk were divided by what looked like a small gap filled with rubber cement every three feet, which was the width of each slab. First looking around to make sure no one was paying any attention whatsoever, he removed the cue ball from the pocket where he had kept the money, the map and the instructions. Rolling it between his fingers and wondering what diabolical purpose such a simple object could serve, then rubbing it thoroughly on his jacket sleeve to remove any fingermarks in a fit of paranoia, he placed it under the bench the bus stop contained, in the depression created by the rubber cement poured between the slabs, just where the instructions said he should. Behind him, cars raced by on the street fronting the bus stop. No one noticed as he stood up and, looking around in a way that would have immediately drawn attention had anyone been even remotely interested in what he was doing, sat down on the bus stop's bench to wait for the next bus to come and take him home.

When his phone rang, he jumped, his anxiety having grown from the thought that some one walking by would notice the cue ball and connect it to him or ask about it or even pick it up. No one had, of course, but that hadn't stopped him from winding up the little rubber band in the model airplane of his soul with so much worry that it knotted. He delved into the pocket of his jeans and pulled out the small iPhone that had been a saving grace to him since he had sold his laptop. After pressing the 'answer' button, he held it to his ear. A much more reassuringly familiar voice than the one he had expected emerged from the phone's speaker.

"Alex? You there?" said the voice on the other end jovially. Alex smiled.

"Yeah. What can I do for you Jack?" he replied. It was Jack Mason, the policeman that patrolled his neighborhood now and then. Alex had met him often when he left to get what pitiful few groceries he could afford. The man was extremely personable and easy to like. He had a smile that could blind the unwary with its sunny cheerfulness and had a love of baseball that Alex just couldn't relate to, but which had never stopped them from being friends. From what Alex had been able to dig up, he had once served in Joburg as a U.N. Peacekeeping Officer before he had quit and come up the continent to live in Mombasa. His accent said far more clearly than anyone else could that he had been raised in the better parts of America that the Great Recession hadn't hit so hard. He had introduced Alex to a large number of the friends he now possessed.

"I was wondering if you'd want to come down to the bar with me and a few buddies. We were going to have a few beers and shoot some pool if you wan to join." the man said.

"What's the occasion?" Alex asked. There was a pause.

"Well the bar's finally getting an HD TV anndd...that's all I can think of. Look, does there really need to be a reason?" Jack replied, a trace of impatience now present in his tone.

"No...no I suppose not. Besides I've got a little cash to spare..." he said then froze, realizing his mistake.

"Well that's good. I'll see you at...what time, eight, ten?" Jack answered, apparently ignoring Alex's slip of the tongue. After seizing control of his anxiety once more, Alex managed to answer.

"I think I can show up around nine. Who else's going to be there?" he said, trying hard to keep his voice from shaking.

"Well so far I got Sheppard, Jason, Powell, Carson and Briggs on board. There might be more but probably not." the Policeman said. Alex wiped his forehead. He couldn't tell what was making sweat more, the heat of the rising sun or his own internal melting pot of anxieties and worries.

"Good, good. I'll grab some chips or pretzels if you want." he said.

"No thanks, we'll just make do with whatever they have tonight." Jack answered back.

"Fair enough. See you tonight." Alex finished.

"Sure thing." Jack replied. They hung up. Alex realized that the sound that had been building in the distance was in fact the approach of the bus he had been waiting for. Out of the corner of his eye, he peeked down at the cue ball. Yep, it was still there, looking innocent but exuding an aura of malice that seemed highly incongruous with its appearance. He rose as the bus screeched to a halt, generating acoustic harmonics that would make micro-fissures in plexiglass as its brakes did their jobs. He boarded it hurriedly, filled with an overwhelming urge to be as far away from this location as possible. As the doors of the bus hissed closed and the bus stop receded into the distance, Alex never saw the figure in the black trenchcoat watching him from a window in the nearby office block three-stories up, who smiled as he completed his task.

Several hours later, Alex sat in the brightly lit 'C & H Tavern', an establishment that did not promise much in the way humor, but did offer much in the way of being able to drink yourself so stupid you would find yourself on the freeway thinking 'What are these fuckers all doing going the wrong way!'. Alex stuck with water. It was probably a safe bet, seeing as clean water was easier to get nowadays in African cities, especially since the Kenyan government had begun its crusade for nation-wide, easy-to-access utilities three years prior. Of course drinking water while everyone else present drank beer might've raised a few eyebrows in any other pub, it didn't in this one. Here, everyone stuck to their own business and, contrary to popular belief, bar fights did not start so often that the manager had a rule of the last person to throw a punch had to pay for the damages.

Alex preferred the water to whatever alcohol the bar was serving. If he ever came as close to getting drunk as he had yesterday, he would prefer to do it with something higher-class than beer. Besides, the only reason he had come that close was because the weight of the world had been upon him. Now he had cash to spare for the next three months at least and, now that he was thinking about it, simply moving packages around for people, as long as they weren't bombs in exchange didn't seem so bad, even if those asking him to do it had suspicion-arousing eccentricities.

He sat at a table with two of his friends, the other four having failed to show up. All had given perfectly reasonable excuses over the phone save Sheppard, who had neglected to call and expound on any possible reasons for his absence. Now he sat here with Carter and Jason Bishop, the two exchanging baseball statistics like a pair of pre-graduate mathematicians from M.I.T. while the world turned beneath his feet and in the background, people spoke cordially on various personal matters in their chosen languages and the clink of glasses mingled with the buzz of human speech.

On the wall next to the bar, a large and noticeably shiny HD TV screen showed a soccer match between two teams which Alex refrained from noticing, just as he instinctively withdrew from any sports activity. People who noticed this, then noticed that Alex was not your average computer geek, complete with beer belly from late night snacks made of strange condiments, often commented on it and then learned that while Alex considered himself averse to popular team sports, he did not consider himself above exercise. He had once told his friend George Carson, another American immigrant ally of his, a translator at the U.S. Embassy here in Mombasa in fact, that he did it because one of the advantages of being fit in an academic field like his was that you could beat up your coworkers, should the need arise. They had both laughed at that.

Eventually, the litany of baseball trivia began to wear on Alex to the point that he thought that butting into the conversation and trying to steer it in another direction might be the only way to preserve his sanity. That was when the door opened briefly to allow in a gust of evening air and the one and only Inspector John Sheppard. Alex tried hard not to sigh with relief. Maneuvering carefully through the tables filled with drinking and talking people, Sheppard made his way over to the table where Alex, Carter and Jason were sitting. As he pulled out a chair and sat down, he brushed his rakish black hair and removed the mirrored sunglasses from his eyes. Carter slid a full beer across the varnished table to the Inspector who caught it and cracked it open with a hiss.

"Sorry about being late." he said, "The department called me out to a multiple crash scene to find out who was responsible and I had to work overtime.".

"Really? Sounds gruesome." Alex said.

"Ah, I'd say 'you've seen one pileup, you've seen em' all', but then I'd be lying." John answered, with the tone of a grizzled veteran in such matters.

"So...anyone important get killed?" Carter asked morbidly. One flaw in his otherwise immaculate people skills was a tendency to come out with questions like that.

"You should know I have to refrain from commenting on that, Carter.", Sheppard said with a smile that lasted as long as a lightning flash. Carter rolled his eyes at that. Jason chose this moment to enter the conversation.

"Where'd it happen?" he said nonchalantly. In the background the TV blared away in English coupled with Swahili subtitles as the soccer game entered its final stages. Sheppard took a swig of his beer and leaned back in his chair.

"Well, we're not scheduled to make an official statement until nine tomorrow, but I can tell you it wasn't far from Cobol Engineering. Just outside the company parking lot actually. It was really weird. The whole thing was weird in fact. We went through the scene and from the looks of it, it was one hell of a freak accident." Sheppard answered. Alex froze. Happily, no one seemed to notice. Except Sheppard.

"Sorry, Alex. I mean, I know you used to work there, but I didn't think it would involve...sorry, here." Sheppard said. He slapped Alex on the back because Alex had begun to choke on his water. Finally, he managed to swallow, and after a fit of extreme coughing, regain his composure.

"Oh I'm sure it was no one I knew. I didn't have many friends in the company, just associates." he said, trying to sound detached while inside his head, alarms were ringing and klaxons were shrilling. This comment earned him some odd looks, but nothing severe.

"Anyway," Sheppard said, breaking the ice, "where's everyone else?". Carter jumped to answer.

"Powell had to have dinner with his wife, Carson had to work late and Briggs, well, Briggs got called in to deal with some guy named Mr. Eko down at the docks." Carter stated before taking a swig of his own beer. This statement caused widespread shock in the group.

"Wait, wait, wait...this Mr. Eko guy...is his last name 'Kahele'?" Jason said, interest coloring his voice.

"Yeah...yeah I think it was." Carter said. Sheppard whistled. Even Alex was impressed. Wherever he had gone in Kenya, Alex had heard tell of Eko Kahele, the one-time drug lord, forced into his trade at age twelve who had turned against his own criminal allies ten years later and redeemed himself, destroying his own drug ring and then handing himself over to the authorities. Upon his release from prison thirty years later he had entered the mining trade and become a wealthy and honest businessman. Alex had looked him up on Wikipedia once and had seen his company listed as number two-hundred and thirty on the Fortune Five-Hundred. His was a tale of inspiration, the criminal who turned against everything he knew and started over as an honest man, working for the betterment of all peoples. His company had helped many Africans find jobs during the worst of the Great Recession's overseas effects and held together entire economies.

That someone Alex knew was working for one of the most legendary corporate 'good guys' of the twentieth century was amazing. That he was going to meet him in person was excellent. Maybe he could get Briggs to put in a good word for him. Alex had never really considered a career in the mining industry, but seeing as he had exhausted all possible major openings in the R&D, software, engineering and other such technological industries, perhaps Mr. Eko would be willing to find a place in his accounting department for an out-of-work desk-jockey such as Alex himself.

"You know...I've heard about that guy. I don't believe he's really reformed." Jason said gruffly.

"You know, that's a pretty ridiculous outlook. The man has contributed more to charity than most people make in their entire lives." Sheppard said. Alex smiled at that. John Sheppard had often told Alex that he wished there were more people like Eko. He had said that if the world had more people willing to change as the great businessman had, then his job would be a lot easier.

"So? That doesn't mean anything. It could all be just a front. Besides, people don't just decide to change like he did. I've seen someone who spent twenty years as a ruthless criminal suddenly have an about-face before, only to be caught doing the exact same stuff he was convicted of before." Jason said vehemently.

"What? Are you saying there's no such thing as a moment of revelation? People can change if they really want to, or if given the right reason." Sheppard replied.

"What happened man? When I first me you, you were the most jaded, anti-social guy I had ever met but now...now you're giving a guy like Eko a second chance? When he made his big turnaround, he was in the inner circle of the twelfth largest drug-empire on the continent. No one gets to be there without being absolutely merciless, so I don't see how after twenty years of being like that he can suddenly grow a conscience" Jason said.

"Jason, in all the time I've been here, I've seen a lot of things. I've taken down my share of drug rings and one of the things I learned is that everyone has a story. Half the drug runners I've interrogated were forced into the trade at an early age when some band of lunatic recruiters showed up in their village and inducted them at gunpoint. They came to the trade and got good at it because it was either that or death." Sheppard spat. It was at this point, happily that Carter intervened, using his excellent social skills to prevent what could have been a horrible disturbance (i.e. bickering, accusations, etc.).

Alex ceased to listen at this point. While Carter soothed growing tempers, Alex pondered his future occupation. If he could really get a job from the one and only Mr. Eko Kahele, he might be able to clear his name and balance out the black mark his time at Cobol had left on his resume with a redeeming light of service in service to the Kahele Heavy Industrial and Mining Combine, a company devoted to clean technology, honest business practices and most of all, the distribution of clean slates to the deserving.

At this point, his phone silently vibrated with a little pattern of one-two-three, indicating someone was texting him. He pulled it out, getting no looks from the others who were still conversing about the virtues of criminals redeeming themselves, but were shifting away from that inevitably back towards sports. Upon opening his inbox, he found that the new message had repulsed his caller-ID app's attempts to verify its source. That could mean only one thing. They wanted to see him. Hastily he stood up, which earned him the confused gazes of his other three companions. He cleared his throat.

"Um...I've got to pop outside for moment. Someone texted me from outside. Says I owe them money. I'll be right back. It's probably just some misunderstanding ." he said. This seemed to pass muster for Jason.Unfortunately, Sheppard and Carter seemed to be a bit more uncertain.

"You sure you want to go alone? Sheppard and I can go with you if you want. If it's bunch of muggers or something, you might need the help." Carter said, his natural civil service paranoia clearly visible on his features. Alex smiled and hoped his nervousness didn't leak through his internal floodgates.

"I'll be fine. You know I've never borrowed off of any sort of mob or gang, so it's probably fine, and if it isn't, well, I did take self-defense classes when I was a kid." he said confidently. 'Admittedly I never got all the way to black-belt,' he said in his head, 'but what the hell. If it is a couple of guys with a lead pipe, I'll be fine. They'll never even see me coming.'. After a short pause, in which Carter and Sheppard looked at each other, and then at him, Sheppard responded with a shrug.

"If you say so man. But if it does get bad, take these." the Inspector said. He reached into his pocket and handed Alex what looked like one-half of a set of brass knuckles, with room for only two fingers. Alex raised a questioning eyebrow. Sheppard grinned.

"Got this off a gangster I laid out when he came after me last week. I didn't report it and it's not like he's going to press charges. Just make sure you don't get caught with it on you." he said. Alex retrieved the device, nodded in thanks, then slid his way through the moderately crowded bar like a ghost and reached the door with a minimum of fuss while behind him, Sheppard immediately became the center of attention for the other two members of the table who wanted to hear all about the fight with the gangster and the origin of the strange 'micro-knuckles'. Once outside, the stench of the closing street markets filled his nose once more like fungus. Moving quickly, he maneuvered himself through the thinning crowds occupying the sidewalk and entered the darkened, unpopulated alley bordering the tavern's left side while the night deepened overhead.

'What is it with these people and meeting in darkened alleys?', Alex wondered. It was cliche beyond all belief. Working hard to avoid tripping over anything that might be littering the alley floor in the dark, Alex worked his way back to the rear of the nine-foot-wide space which became ever more narrow as he worked his way further back, shrinking like some optical illusion corridor into a rear exit that was little more than a three inch wide slit between the buildings on either side. It came as an immense surprise when some one pressed something round and cold to the back of his head and said: "Goodbye, Mr. Tyrone.". The was a sound like 'THWCHCK' and for a moment it was all Alex could do to keep his bowels under control. Then realized that the pressure on the back of his head was gone. Slowly, he turned and saw something that would haunt him forever.

Standing less than two feet behind him was a man in a black pants with a white T-Shirt, all of which was barely visible in the darkness of the alley. What was readily visible was the hole centered directly in the middle of his forehead. From it leaked a couple drops of blood which ran down his face and across his features making him look like a stature carved from marble filled with veins of impurities. He had a bare few seconds to see and comprehend this before the man collapsed onto Alex, who stumbled backwards in disgust as blood leaked from the hole in his head onto Alex's gray t-shirt, spattering it with tiny flecks of red liquid. It was then that Alex saw the magnum with an attached silencer the man had been holding.

Footsteps echoed through the alley, causing Alex to look up. Out of the darkness of the long passage came the all too familiar figure of Runner. She strode towards him with an air of total unconcern. In her left hand was the largest pistol Alex had ever seen. What was more frightening was that it was smoking. As she came within five feet of him, she slid the gun into her black trenchcoat which flapped with her swift movement. Strangely, this did not seem to weigh her down, as if the gun simply ceased to exist when she had placed it into her coat. She stopped just in front of the body.

"Y-y-you shot him!" Alex stammered, the sheer horror of his situation beginning to set in.

"He was about to kill you. He saw you earlier performing your mission and put two and two together when he heard about the crash later on." she said. Her voice was empty of all emotion. She clearly did not feel any sort of guilt over what she had done.

"Wait...wait, wait. Are you saying that somehow, me putting a fucking CUE BALL on the pavement at a bus stop somehow caused a multiple-car pileup over nine hours later!" Alex said, incredulity waxing high through his tone in an uncontrollable manner. Runner seemed to pay no attention to this. She bent down and rolled the corpse over, then sifted through his pockets, finally retrieving a small metal plate engraved with a symbol that Alex had never seen before on it.

"Huh, he's from the Syndicate. Funny, he doesn't look Nigerian." she muttered. Then she looked up.

"Not to worry Mr. Tyrone. We'll be doubling our watch over you to make sure this doesn't happen again. As for our friend here I'll dispose of him before I leave. I suggest you take this opportunity to make your exit, but before you go, rub this into your shirt. It'll get rid of the bloodstains." she said, standing back up and opening the right half of her coat to reveal a sort of toolkit made up of tiny gadgets and vials of mysterious liquid, one of which she removed and handed to Alex who now stood open-mouthed, lost for words. In his head, all he could think was: 'I'm standing in an alley with an extremely attractive woman who has just saved my life and the man who just tried to kill me is now lying at my feet with a hole in his head and his BLOOD is all over my shirt and someone just tried to kill me. ME! Of all people! Someone tried to kill me!'. She then looked him straight in the eye with a cold gaze that could have frozen helium at fifty paces.

"Stay away from Eko Kahele. He's been our ally for a very long time and we have made him more than aware of your role in our plans. Should you attempt to contact him for a job offer you will be refused. You work for us and no one else until your contract is complete." she said, the chill of her gaze leaking into her voice.

"But I thought you said that I-" Alex tried to say before his 'employer' cut him off.

"Yes, we did you say could leave whenever you chose, but now we are altering our agreement. Information from my superiors says that the work you are doing now requires that YOU do it and no one else. Furthermore, it is no longer safe for you to leave our employment because if you did, people like the one we are standing over would be all over you." Runner said, her icy tone now melting slightly into a more placid, neutral one. There was another pause until Alex once again mustered his wits, during which Runner reached down and went through the rest of the cadaver's pockets, finding nothing but lint and something that looked like a passport which she quickly pocketed before he could get a good look.

"What is going on!" he whispered viciously at her, trying simultaneously to convey his anger and avoid attracting attention from anyone beyond the alley. Runner smiled in way that made Alex's skin want to crawl around from the front of his body to the back.

"Mr. Tyrone, I suggest you go home soon. Get some sleep. Do what we have asked and all will be revealed...eventually." she said sweetly, the ice now replaced by what seemed to be poisoned honey. Alex quickly recovered before the pale woman could turn and leave him standing there with his mouth still hanging open like an idiot.

"The people who died in the crash, who were they?" he inquired hurriedly. This question hung in the air like a noose for several seconds. Around him the darkness deepened and the air cooled with the descent of the sun. Finally Runner answered.

"Mr. Tyrone, right now I have let you hear far more than anyone at your level in our organization ever should. But you know what? I like you. You did your job well. So I will tell you that those killed deserved far worse than the quick death we gave them. We have documents connecting them to illegal experiments not just with genetics, but with the funding of illegal experiments in cybernetics and surgical enhancement on unwilling subjects, both human and non-human. They were almost as bad as the board of MNU. If we had released the evidence, they would have used their influence in the courts to squirm out of it. So we had you do what no else could: we had you deliver natural justice to the deserving." she said quietly. Then she raised her eyes, which she had been pointing at the ground until then, and stared straight into his soul.

"You must understand, Mr. Tyrone, we are at war. In wars even secret ones like ours, people die. But unlike most wars, we are not fighting for power, for land or for money. We are fighting for the future of the universe. We are fighting to save mankind from itself. I can't give you anything more until you have completed your first tasks. Goodbye.".

At this point, the urge to get as far away from this woman as quickly as possible became irresistible. Slowly at first, but then with increasing speed, he exited the alley and made his way back to the bar as the orange glow of street lamps finished filling the city causing him to squint upon his exiting the alley. As he reentered the warm light of the now even-more-crowded bar, he quietly breathed a sigh of relief and tried to wrestle with the feeling that he had just barely escaped with his life on top of the fact that some one had actually tried to kill him, of all people!

Then he made his way to the remarkably empty bathroom where, as instructed he rubbed the contents of the vial into his shirt which caused the flecks of blood to vanish as if they had never been there. The stuff felt like water, but left no mark and dried up soon after it was applied, smelling of laundry detergent as it did. Then he threw up in the sink as the dual nauseating sights of death and murder caught up with him and took their toll. The porcelain basin luckily had no drain-strainer, which made it easier for him to wash away the remains of his puke. The scents of detergent and vomit soon faded into the general smells of the bathroom, however, leaving Alex to wonder why he hadn't listened to that internal voice on that first night, the one which had told him that he was going to regret signing on with this 'mystery mob'.

Soon after Alex left, Runner knelt once more and went over the cadaver one final time, retrieving a watch-like device from its wrist and then pocketing this after briefly examining it. Then she reached into her coat once more and extracted a vial, the contents of which were glowing green and looked like soap. She unscrewed the top of the container and carefully poured it onto the body with a quiet hissing sound working hard to distance herself from it.. Where it touched the body, clothes, flesh and bone broke down into an oily mixture which then spread across the already damp and stained ally floor before running down the nearest storm drain. As soon as she had emptied the small vial of slime, she dropped it into the melting mess which was now smoking like dry ice.

Within less than a minute, the corpse had become fluid with a texture like engine oil which then ran down the storm drain and mixed with the varied gunk already covering the alley floor. All that remained were the inorganic bits of the body, including traces of iron, buttons, a pair of sunglasses, the tube which had held the substance and a tiny ear-piece like those carried by C.I.A. agents. After waiting another two minutes to make sure that the substance had had enough time for its self-eradicating properties to begin take effect, Runner donned a pair of non-stick gloves made of synthetic, rubber-like compounds, gathered the all the leftovers floating on top of the slime like lily pads on the surface of a pond, crushed the larger remains including the vial and glasses with her booted foot, which was covered in the same material as the gloves and dropped them into the alley's storm drain whose metal cover she removed and replaced without a sound.

She grimaced with disgust. She hated cleanup, preferring to let her hateful pursuers rot on their own schedule. Still, right now they couldn't afford exposure of the current war, at least not until everything was in place. She carefully retrieved the silenced magnum, the only thing she hadn't destroyed, from the puddle, working hard not to let the gunk touch her skin, just in case the compound's self-eradicating properties hadn't yet fully completed their effects, and looked at it with disdain. The design was completely tasteless, a black metal thing without a single sign that the designer had taken any joy in his work. It was a testament to the mindless uniformity of her enemies. After examining it for a minute, more than enough time for the liquefaction compound to have broken down and become harmless, he squeezed the gun in her grasp freely, paying no mind to the slime as it leaked between her fingers. There was a crinkling sound...and the gun was crushed as if it were made of silly putty. She then tossed it into the furthest reaches of the alley where the space between the buildings became so narrow as to be impassable for any normal human being. Then she pulled a water bottle and from her coat's inside pockets and removed what little slime the weapon's destruction had left on her hand.

Her evidence-elimination efforts completed, she reached into her right pocket and liberated a large cell-phone with neon highlights in green, red and blue which she opened with a sound like an ammo clip being snapped into a pistol. After taking a moment to dial, she raised it to her ear.

"This is Runner. The Agenda is progressing. Suggest level 2 protection plan for Mr. Tyrone." she said crisply. On the other end of the line, a raspy male voice that sounded as if it might have a throat problem answered.

"Excellent work. I agree with your assessment. Even though the agent you eliminated did not communicate what he had learned to his superiors, it is inevitable that more will find out about him and attempt to remove him." it said. Runner turned and put one hand on her hip.

"Any progress on your end?" she inquired.

"Indeed. Preparations for the primary events are going smoothly. The Serum Prototype has passed every test and we should soon have a working prototype of the Remedy by next week. The Agency has located more artifacts and secured them as planned. By the time everything is in place and our devices prepared, the System won't stand a chance. The Third Age is practically already ours" the voice said smugly. Runner frowned and stared at the alley's exit.

"Beware your pride..." she whispered. The voice snorted.

"It's not pride, Runner, it's established fact. It doesn't matter that the System has been busy screwing up this planet for the past three-hundred years. We're going to have them by the balls in a matter of minutes when the time comes for the main event. " the voice rasped. It then descended into a fit of coughing that sounded, over the phone, like a sack of gravel being smacked against a wall.

"That doesn't sound good." Runner said when the fit had died down.

"No, it doesn't. Unfortunately standing around in the smog where I am is detrimental even to the health of a man with my abilities. I'll have to get Healer to repair the damage when I get back." it wheezed. Runner grimaced at that. If breathing was causing **that** much trouble, the smog must've been laced with acid or thick with carcinogens.

"What the hell are you doing?" she asked curiously.

"You know I can't say." the voice replied, then chuckled. There was an extended pause which Runner eventually broke.

" On the subject of our associate... you do know sooner or later, we'll have to tell him everything." she said. There was just a smidgen of worry in that remark, which was highly uncharacteristic for a woman of such hardened fortitude.

"He will be informed, but remember, only after we are ready to move. Despite our progress we still have a ways to go until we reach the finale. We can't risk compromising our cover, not after everything that we've gone through to get this far." the voice said soothingly. There was a pause on both ends. Then Runner broke it.

"Understood. Any further orders?" she inquired.

"Just two. First, make sure he picks up the first three packages and moves them by tomorrow night. Time for our unwilling employee to earn his keep. Second, see to it that he reads the training material. He needs to be fully programmed for whatever he might face." the voice said firmly. There was a gunshot from the other end of the line.

"Problem?" inquired Runner. There were two more, a 'FWOOSH', then a truly unique sound which seemed to imply that someone had just thrown a bucket of paint across a brick wall. This was followed by the sounds of dripping liquid.

"Eugggghhh. I didn't mean to do that." the voice said, disgust filling his voice.

"What, what did you do?" Runner said, curiosity and worry filling her voice in equal measure.

"I'll refrain from describing what I did, but did you know that it's really hard for a human body to maintain structural integrity when it hits a cinder-block wall at Mach 6?" the voice said. Then it muttered: "Probably would've been better to vaporize him. ".

"ANYWAYS..." Runner said after a brief attempt to replay this in the cinema of her imagination and hastily consigning most of it to the cutting room floor, "You clean up, then get out of there. I'll be back at base before the night's over. Runner out."


End file.
